Li Ward photographer of pets and weddings. Fat Orange Cat Studio is a fresh and candid boutique photography service in Boston, Massachusetts.

Last weekend I photographed Jill & Brian’s happy, emotional beach wedding on Plum Island, Massachusetts. It’s hard to believe this wedding has already come and gone: I have been awaiting it with nervous anticipation ever since Jill booked me nearly a full year ago, all the way from Los Angeles and when my photography portfolio consisted mainly of hand-knitted socks, scarves, and the occasional cat wearing said scarves. We met online waaay back through our mutual love of knitting. We are both members of Ravelry, a very popular online knitting community. That’s right. Knitting is huge. Just about everyone knits, including me (although very very little these days). It was an extreme leap of faith on Jill’s part to book me when she did, but just as she said about meeting her husband-to-be, “When you know you’ve found the one, you know.” I think we all operate best when given complete trust, and that’s true whether you’re in a job or a relationship. So I thank Jill from the bottom of my heart for trusting me implicitly to photograph her beautiful seaside wedding!

We started at Jill & Brian’s rented beach house on Plum Island, where we found Jill’s mother putting the finishing touches to the bride’s rosemary and lavender head wreath. Upstairs the bridesmaids were arranging their own floral bouquets. As expected from a crafter, there were a lot of DIY touches, including an ivory cashmere wedding shawl that Jill knit herself, as well knitted seahorses that would become cake toppers.

After the beach ceremony everyone was caravanned to nearby Plum Island Hall for the reception. The color themes were teal, orange and white. ;-)

After the reception, some of the guests lingered and headed back to the beach house, carting along with them the leftover wine bottles and the leftover cupcakes to enjoy as the sun began to set. On this day a crazy storm was raging in Boston, uprooting trees and cutting off power lines. Tornado warnings were even issued. On Plum Island it wasn’t quite so drastic, though the weather could not make up its mind what it wanted to do – rain or clouds or sun? Or how about a mix of all three throughout the day? But whatever the weather decided to do, it did at the right time. For the early afternoon beach ceremony we had a soft blanket of gray clouds, parting just slightly for family portraits on the dunes, torrential downpours while everyone was indoors at the reception, and then puffy white happy clouds that turned golden and pink at the after-party. It was such variable, delicious lighting.

Congratulations Jill and Brian! It was a priviledge to be part of your wonderful day.

This entry was posted on Monday, June 14th, 2010 at 3:56 pm and is filed under Weddings. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

Tags: beach wedding, north shore wedding photography, plum island